Unfortunately, hacking, intrusions, phishing and Internet fraud are just some of the malicious activities that occur on a daily basis. To some extent we are so bombarded by them that we have become kind of ambivalent. This is exactly what we should not be doing. These malicious activities occur on an epic scale, probing for vulnerabilities in a highly-sophisticated manner. This is a 24/7 operation that never sleeps, takes vacation or sick days, or goes home on the weekends. It never takes a break when you do.

While many are talking about Twitter security concerns, financial institutions are obvious targets for those seeking ill-gotten gains, as well as those with anti-West and anti-capitalist political motives. And yesterday’s events proved that social media’s problem is also a business problem. It’s critical that financial services and insurance companies maintain ongoing security efforts, not only to defend against these kinds of attacks, but also to provide continuity in case of catastrophic events like Hurricane Sandy—which had a tremendous economic impact on businesses in the financial services sector.

Today, financial services institutions typically use data transmission platforms to move various data around geographically diverse entities, as well as to and from customers and partners. Legacy systems are not fit for this purpose. It’s a dirty little secret that openings exist which could be found by internal staff and malicious outsiders. The good thing is information security departments now have the budget to modernize and consolidate these platforms in order to eliminate any vulnerability, while also increasing agility and reducing costs. Learn more about SEEBURGER’s financial services offerings today.

After an extensive review of many solutions, Nordea opted to go with SEEBURGER’s Business Integration Server (BIS6). The company was drawn to SEEBURGER’s competence in modernization and consolidation projects, and the solution’s robust and unified global platform. Thus the business communication and infrastructure integration project began.

Upon completion of the modernization and consolidation project, Nordea was impressed not only by the solution, but also by SEEBURGER’s level of flexibility and commitment.

“We had full access to the SEEBURGER development team and they were really perceptive about our needs and also future requirements,” Claus Richter, head of Nordea global integration services said.

Learn more today by reading the full case study.

In fact, some estimates pinpoint the cost of operating 100 FTP servers at right around $1 million. When you consider the fact FTP is not secure and simply not equipped to handle large volumes of mission-critical file transfers, nothing adds up other than the cost of running it.

Use the chart below to estimate what FTP is really costing your business. Don’t forget to include indirect costs (personnel, tech support, etc.) in your final calculation. Then read the TCO of FTP: Hidden Costs of Free File Sharing white paper to learn more about the FTP problem and its solution.

For more information, visit our Managed File Transfer resource center: www.seeburgermft.com

The simple fact is that we live in a changing world. The Darwinian theory of having to change in order to survive continues to ring true.  Banks and financial services firms have learned this lesson the hard way—through fines, reputational damage and in some cases, having to close their doors.

This pandemic of high-risk attitudes towards winning at the expense of customers has to be cured. In the case of Barclay’s, the answer to restoring the bank’s reputation lays in comprehensive change, according to the news article.

So how can banks make these much-needed changes? The answer exists in two parts.

1. Ethics must change throughout the financial services industry, with everyone from the highest C-level executives, to IT help desk technicians ensuring they do. Responsible, transparent behavior needs to be the order of the day. This is by no means going to take place overnight; it will be part of an ongoing journey that all employees must undertake.
2. Part of the answer lays in flexible, adaptable and manageable financial services IT solutions that provide the governance, monitoring and reporting capabilities needed from top to bottom. To do this properly, banks need to invest in deploying rules-based technology that can provide the deliverables sought.

Ultimately, good ethics or IT capabilities can’t deliver the sweeping sea of change needed in the financial services industry alone. They must be put into place together. The top-down instilment of ethical behavior must be supported by the thorough governance, monitoring and reporting capability of sound financial services IT solutions. The twain will simply have to meet.

“MFT solutions deliver reliable capabilities to address file transfer across internal A2A, B2B and cloud environments, while providing centralized governance for file transfers across these environments,” according to a Gartner analysis¹ of MFT.

A complete MFT suite features services that support management policies, governance processes, coordination and reliable file transfer. Along with workflow automation, provisioning and technological adaptability, MFT enables:

• File security through integration with other solutions to manage risk, access and authentication
• Governance monitoring through data, message, file and transaction tracking capabilities
• File transfer visibility into transactions, the people involved, and crucial processes and systems
• Reporting and auditing features that collect file transfer data to provide a complete audit trail

To bring MFT out of the abstract and into the real world, we’ve created an infographic to help explain it. Once you’ve viewed it, visit our MFT Resource Center to learn more.

¹ What MFT Is, and How It Applies to You © 2011 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

What exactly does this mean? It means the SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite (BIS) has proven it can perform secure data transmission using both FileAct communication protocol variants. This means our customers can rest easy knowing the BIS platform complies with SWIFT’s strict requirements for securely exchanging financial data.

“These initial qualifications demonstrate our ability to meet SWIFT’s stringent requirements, our commitment to the financial services sector and our intention to equip customers in the sector with the tools they need to  solve their business integration challenges,” said Derek Schwartz, SEEBURGER senior VP of financial services.

With these qualifications, financial service organizations using the secure SWIFT network to exchange financial data can use our platform to handle all FileAct traffic and perform other value-added operations. Read the press release to learn more and then visit our website for information on financial services software solutions.

We tell ourselves that yes, texting and driving is dangerous, but we’re really good drivers so we’re fine. Yes, eating a high-fat diet can cause heart attacks, but those things only happen to other people. Sometimes data breaches happen, and businesses lose millions of dollars and their reputation. But that won’t happen to us. We’re careful and don’t share anything important online anyway.

But do your people really know how to keep things private? Research suggests they probably don’t, as analysts say nearly half of all security breaches are caused by employees and business partners.  Are you absolutely, 100 percent positive there isn’t anything on the free Web file sharing service you use sometimes that you wouldn’t want the whole world to see?

A new Network World Magazine article, Combating Security Breaches with Managed File Transfer Technology, takes a hard look at some recent security breaches and the technology that helps prevent breaches from ever happening. Read the article today to learn more—then visit our managed file transfer solution center for white papers, case studies and more.

Testing alone won’t be enough to fix the problems the industry faces. As analyst Lev Lesokhin told BBC News, “Modern computer systems are so complicated you would need to perform more tests than there are stars in the sky to be 100 percent sure there were no problems in the system.”

The solution rests in a consolidated, secure communications suite. For example, SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite simplifies the complexity of connecting diverse groups of customers, regulators, market infrastructures and stakeholders. The suite also delivers processes that enable end-to-end integration to the legacy systems most banking organizations currently utilize.

Along with innovations focused on migration, supporting vendor confidence and eliminating complexity, SEEBURGER Business Integration Suite can also play a key role in meeting the regulatory requirements set forth by Dodd Frank and Basel III. Visit our SEEBURGER financial industry solution center to learn more about what we offer organizations in the financial services sector.

So we know the dangers — but what can we do? A new playbook from analyst firm Forrester provides valuable insights into both the current state of data security  and what can be done to move organizations forward to securing, well, data security of course.

Read the full report today, it’s on us. Then visit our MFT Solution Center to discover the market’s first single, integrated system for ensuring sensitive files (even the ones of mammoth proportions) are secure, visible, and compliant with governance and regulatory requirements.

Furthermore, a recent analyst survey discovered that more than half of IT managers find legacy B2B landscapes problematic in terms of integrating EDI, supporting partners without EDI capabilities and a whole lot more. As illustrated in the new SAPinsider, here’s a sneak peak at four of the top reasons to modernize B2B architecture:

1. Eliminate “Integration Spaghetti”
   Spaghetti belongs on a dinner plate. A jumbled mix of B2B components must accommodate various encryption requirements, new protocols, partners and more.
2. Integrate File Transfer Functionality
   Would you buy one car for work and another for errands? Nope—makes as much sense as one B2B infrastructure for managed file transfer and another for EDI/B2B.
3. Conquer B2B-related Big Data
   No one wants to go swimming in data, and respondents in one recent survey ranked EDI/B2B supplier community data as one of the most difficult types to work with.
4. Strengthen Data Security
   Legacy B2B systems lack modern security features that enforce policies, notify of failures and more. Using Web services to transfer files only exacerbates the security gap.

To learn more and read the full list of the eight top reasons legacy B2B has got to go, check out “Does Your B2B Architecture Pass the Test?” in the latest issue of SAPinsider.